Donate to Split This Rock

Split This Rock is a grassroots effort—a people’s movement begun in 2008 with the very first Split This Rock Poetry Festival, an outgrowth of DC Poets Against the War. Thanks largely to the support and participation of so many of you, the first Split This Rock Poetry festivals were tremendously successful. You—and many others—asked us to make the festival a regular event and to build Split This Rock into a permanent home for progressive poets. We've been building on that vision ever since and there's so much more to do! To reach our programming goals, we'll need your involvement. Would you invest in Split This Rock today?

We hope you'll lend your support. With your help, we can continue cultivating Split This Rock as an organization that genuinely represents the diversity of progressive poets working in all areas of our country and in all poetic styles today. We're excited about the opportunities to improve and grow but it takes resources to get us there. Be part of making it happen!

Be Part of Celebrating Split This Rock's 10 Years of Poetry, Witness & Resistance: #10YearsofPoWeR

Dissent and action for social justice. Diversity and inclusivity. Artistic excellence. These are just a few of the core values Split This Rock was founded on. For ten years, Split This Rock has cultivated, taught, and celebrated poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes change. As more poets become engaged in writing and organizing for justice, Split This Rock leads the charge with festivals, publications, and programs that challenge power and sustain us in perilous times.

Split This Rock’s 10 For 10 Campaign

Be part of infusing the next 10 years with even more might and beauty, celebrating all our necessary voices as we call forth a world in which we all can thrive. Here are ways you can be involved:

Pledge $10 per Month to Split This Rock – Go to the donate page to enter your credit card information one time and it automatically charges your card $10 each month. Couldn’t be easier! http://www.splitthisrock.org/donate

Tell 10 Friends About Split This Rock - Share why you think Split This Rock's work is valuable by posting to Twitter, Facebook, and/or Instagram and tagging 10 friends. Include the donation link [http://www.splitthisrock.org/donate] and the anniversary hashtag: #10YearsofPoWeR!

BIG NEWS! DOUBLE YOUR DONATION!

The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation has given Split This Rock a tremendous vote of confidence: They will match every donation from a new supporter or increased gift from an existing donor, up to $5,000.

SPLIT THIS ROCK NAMED ONE OF DC'S BEST SMALL CHARITIES

Split This Rock is featured in the 2017-2018 Catalogue for Philanthropy as one of the best small charities in the Greater Washington region. Visit Split This Rock's page to give today! Donations given through the Catalogue portal incur the lowest transaction fees.

WHAT YOUR DONATION CAN DO

Here are just a few ways your contribution can help.

$25 can...

provide refreshments for FREE bi-monthly poetry writing workshops

cover the cost of supplies for one social justice action, such as Split This Rock's Department of Justice poem drop in support of the Black Lives Matter movement

purchase postage to send haiku postcards that include messages from Splittistas to the POTUS

$50 can...

support marketing and PR efforts to spread the word about Split This Rock events & programs nationally

help pay a stipend for a featured poet at the monthly Sunday Kind of Love Reading & Open Mic Series in partnership with Busboys and Poets

provide support in purchasing necessary workshop materials such as name tags, markers, and easel paper

$100 can...

help to hire professionals to videotape or photograph a one hour poetry event so the fabulosity can be shared nationally

allow us to award first prize to a poem that destroys the stigma around reproductive rights through the Abortion Rights Poetry Contest

assist us in hosting a guest poet in support of special events such as the Fall for the Book Festival at George Mason University

$250 can...

help provide ASL interpreteration for 2 hours, making a poetry event accessible to the D/deaf & hard of hearing community

allow us to hire a work study student from a local college to support programming such as Split This Rock's Eco-Justice Anthology Project

enable us to provide a scholarship to a team of youth poets to participate in Louder Than a Bomb DMV Teen Poetry Slam Festival

provide one month's stipend for a Fellow or intern position, increasing Split This Rock's capacity to manage the programmatic load

help us send a dynamic teaching artist into a DC-area school or afterschool poetry program for one month and pay them!

$1000 can...

help make it possible for the DC Youth Slam Team and their coaches to annually participate in Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival by defraying the cost of registration, travel, lodging, and food

assist us in renting an accessible venue large enough for a signature event such as Split This Rock Poetry Festival or the DC Youth Slam Team Finals

make it possible for staff to travel out of state to bring Split This Rock magic to others around the country

Every dollar given enables us to raise the platform higher for poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes change.

The work of Split This Rock depends on a strong financial foundation. Your tax-deductible funds and support enable us to: organize a unique national biennial poetry festival, two youth poetry slam festivals, as well as other public workshops, open mics, readings, and events; foster opportunities for poets to participate in creative activism for social justice and peace; support the growth and voices of teen poets by exposing them to extraordinary adult artists as mentors; offer DC area teachers lesson plans that make poetry an engaging and relevant part of their curriculum; celebrate and award the outstanding work of poets combining poetry and activism; and provide resources that inform and inspire poets, equipping them to play an active role as public citizens.

Gifts of any size are deeply appreciated. We hope you'll consider giving $50, $100, or more. Everyone who donates will be thanked on the website. And if you’re able to give $100 or more, you’ll be thanked in the 2018 Split This Rock Festival program or other printed materials. Click the "Donate Now" heart or the heading above to give online.

poem of the week

Talk Ugly

Typhoon Poem

by: Patrick Rosal

all the zillion spoons whacking
the rusty roofs, all the wicked tin streams
flipping full-grown bucks off their hooves.
Everywhere there used to be a river,
there’s a bigger river now. Every hard face
on the block is sopping...